


To Be Alive In Death

by Hekate1308



Series: Children of Purgatory [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Purgatory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-15
Updated: 2013-11-15
Packaged: 2018-01-01 15:10:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1045377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hekate1308/pseuds/Hekate1308
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She might not have lived long, but she was aware that the phrase "being born to die” was somewhat of a cliché. Emma character piece.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Be Alive In Death

**Author's Note:**

> I found Emma interesting and decided to explore her character.

She might not have lived long, but she was aware that the phrase „being born to die” was somewhat of a cliché.

And yet that was exactly what had happened to her.

As she hid in a tree from yet another dead ghoul, she found herself wondering who had killed the creature several metres under her and why.

She found herself consider the possibility that it had been her father.

This had happened more and more often lately, her thoughts straying to the man who had been chosen by her mother to keep the genetic pool clean and ironically turned out to be a hunter.

And yet he hadn’t been the one to kill her.

She didn’t know how long she’d been here. She didn’t know how much time had passed on Earth since she’d died.

Ever since she had woken up in Purgarory, all she’d done was run and hide. She suspected her sisters would have been furious with her for showing such weakness, but she couldn’t win against monsters who had been here for hundreds of years. Who had developed a routine in killing.

And she had not killed anything yet. As her father had told her.

The problem with running and hiding was that, other than being constantly on the look-out for danger, it left her too much time to think. About the three days she had spent on Earth. About Dean Winchester. About her sisters. About herself.

Amazons weren’t supposed to think about themselves. You grew up, they told you what to do, you passed your initiation and became one of them.

At first, she had been furious that she hadn’t succeeded. Now – now she wasn’t so sure.

And if she had been allowed to feel fear, that thought would have scared her.

Emma realized that she had been lost in her had again and looked around. The vampire was long gone. She climbed down and continued walking through Purgatory.

Sometimes, she asked herself why she bothered to survive. Or – stay undead or whatever her condition could be called. It wasn’t like her life had been good enough to want to cling to it at all costs.

_My childhood has been kind of disappointing._

Once again she remembered her brief encounter with her father. She tried not to, but the memory kept bursting through the surface, making her question everything she had learned.

 And making her wonder if everything she’d told Dean Winchester had indeed been a lie.

She had believed it at the time. She had come to his motel room while he was alone to kill him. To do what she had been told to do.

_“He will be a challenge, Emma. He is a hunter. But we have no doubt of you succeeding and taking your place among us”._

_Neither had she. They had told her about Dean Winchester; while they hadn’t known what he looked like until they had put an observation on Emma’s father and realized they were one and the same, they had heard about him and his brother. There were few monsters that hadn’t. They knew how deadly they were, but they also knew what family meant to them. Dean Winchester wouldn’t kill his daughter._

But, thinking about it now –

She had to admit that she had felt slightly _different_.

How she had hesitated before taking her nutrition.

How she had flinched when she had been branded with the mark of the sisterhood.

It was still on her wrist, but it didn’t make her proud like she had been told it would. Like she had been told it should.

She absent-mindedly rubbed it with her other hand as she continued to make her way through the never-ending forest.

Perhaps she had indeed been different. Perhaps her heritage had caused her to be –

No. She had been, she _was_ an Amazon. The only difference between her and her sisters was that she’d failed where they had succeeded.

If Dean Winchester’s brother hadn’t arrived when he did –

But she always stopped there.

She had to.

Because, if she didn’t –

Doubt had begun to grow in her.

Not about what her father would have done; she knew he would have let her go. He would not have killed her.

_You’re a good man._

He’d been right, of course; her mother hadn’t told her that. Her mother hadn’t told her anything about her father.

Except when she’d explained that the man who had just dropped in to collect his flask was the man she’d picked to create Emma with.

Even then, she recognized now, she had felt the small, but still burning need to ask more questions, to demand explanations.

Why did she have to be the one Amazon who was different? Why did she have to be the one to ask herself whether –

Whether she could have gone through with it.

If Sam Winchester hadn’t shown up.

She had been so sure, so confident. Full of her purpose.

And her father had managed to make her question it in the space of two minutes.

Emma couldn’t say why, but she was certain that he would have helped her, if she had been sincere. If she had indeed wanted to escape. He would have helped her. Because, no matter what her mother had or hadn’t said, he was a good man. He cared for his brother. He saved people.

And, after a long time spent hiding, she couldn’t deny that most (if not all) the monsters in Purgatory had deserved to die.

When she heard footsteps behind her, she forced all thoughts of her father (and herself) away and concentrated on running.

Over the next few months (as she had decided she might as well measure the time she spent here, even if it would be an eternity) it became harder and harder to ignore the question.

Would she have killed her father?

The man who had offered her to leave? Who had tried to talk her out of killing him even though he could have shot her before she reached him?

She desperately tried not to answer this question because, somewhere deep inside her, she had already found the answer and it brought dishonour over her and her sisters.

And then, one day, she was walking near a stream when she suddenly heard screams not far off.

This was not an unusual occurrence, far from it, in fact. But for the first time, she felt compelled to move towards the screams instead of away from them.

She doubted her sanity in the next moment. But she had already gone mad, probably even before she landed here (which Amazon would admit she would have disobeyed an order from her older sisters?) and she was tired of running. Tired of hiding. Tired of this whole meaningless existence, if it could even be called that. If today proved to be the end of it –

It would be over, at least.

Emma still was careful not to be seen; she would like to at least know what killed her.

The screams increased and she distinguished the growls of a Wendigo and a woman’s desperate pleas for help.

She reached a small clearing and stayed hidden in the shadow of the trees.

A young dark-haired woman – who looked as human as Emma herself – ran into the clearing and fell down. A moment later, the Wendigo burst through the trees.

The woman was paralyzed with fear.

Emma had learned about all Supernatural creatures. At least growing up in three days also allowed the Amazons to learn everything there was to know in the meantime.

Wendigos could be killed by fire.

There was no reason for her to help the young woman.

And yet she quickly snapped two dry branches and managed to set them on fire much more quickly than she’d thought – she knew how to do it, but had never done it before, because it would undoubtedly have drawn monsters towards her resting place.

She stepped into the clearing with the two burning branches, one in each hand, showing her true eyes for the first time since she’d come here.

The Wendigo, who had raised his arm to strike his victim, looked at her and the fire.

He hesitated for only a second, but it was long enough.

She ran towards him and, just as he recovered himself and lunged towards her, threw one of the branches in his face.

He howled in pain and clawed at his face to get rid of it, and she quickly used the other to light him on fire.

Then, she stared as the monster fell down, crying out in pain, and rolled around, trying to stop the fire from spreading.

It was no use.

She grabbed the young woman, hauled her to her feet and dragged her away from the clearing.

They ran for ten minutes before she considered them safe enough to stop for the time being.  

She turned around to find that the young woman was staring at her with obvious fear.

Emma recalled that she hadn’t changed her eyes back yet and did so.

“Hello” she said, surprised at the her own voice; she hadn’t talked to anyone in so long that she’d almost forgotten what it sounded like.

“I’m Emma”.

The young woman swallowed and nodded. She took a deep breath before answering, “I’m Madison.”

Emma scrutinized her; she looked like a normal human being. She probably had been born as one and had been turned into a monster.

“What are you?” she asked, and Madison stared at her before laughing somewhat bitterly.

“Sorry, I just – I got turned shortly before my death. And with all these creatures around... I never got used to thinking myself a monster. I’m a werewolf”.

She looked expectantly at Emma, and she answered, “I’m an Amazon”.

Madison stared at her. “Really? Those exist? Not to be rude, but... I haven’t met one yet.”

She wouldn’t have. Madison wasn’t a worthy opponent. When an Amazon was sent to Purgatory, she was supposed to hold up the sisterhood’s honour by fighting the eternal battle in the eternal battlegrounds.

Just another order Emma had failed to obey.

She bit her lip, unsure of how to continue the conversation. She hadn’t really talked to anyone outside the sisterhood before. Except for her father.

“You look very young” Madison said suddenly and Emma realized she felt pity for her.

No one had ever done that before.

She swallowed and forced herself to sound casual.

“You don’t look so old yourself”

Madison ran her fingers through her dirty hair and smiled.

“I guess we were both unlucky.”

Emma hadn’t been unlucky, but different, and she still was. No other Amazon would have saved Madison.

She shrugged.

“Have you been here long?”

She asked the question without being aware of it, just another proof that she wasn’t used to talking to people. But she had seen how Madison had run away, and she couldn’t believe that she would survive long on her own.

The answer surprised her.

“Yes. Although I can’t say for how long. I keep getting killed.”

“Sorry?” Emma asked, confused.

Madison sighed, resigned.

“When you die here, you just wake up again sometime later, and it all starts over.”

So this was indeed the place where they would “prey on for all eternity”. Emma couldn’t even get out by dying.

So this was where she would spend eternity.

Before she had time to dwell on the thought, Madison continued, “I just woke up. Thank you for saving me”.

“You’re welcome” Emma answered automatically.

They stood in silence and stared at one another, and Emma wondered if she should go.

But –

She hadn’t talked to anyone in so long.

And she had never had a friend before.

So she asked “Do you want to come with me?” and genuinely smiled when Madison beamed.

From this moment on, she wasn’t alone with her thoughts anymore.

At night – the few hours where the darkness became even more impenetrable – they weren’t scared to light a fire anymore because one of them always kept watch. Emma taught Madison all the survival techniques she knew.

It was nice, she decided, to take care of and look out for someone. She could understand why her father was so fond of his brother.

Madison, on the other hand, insisted that she got some rest now and then and cleaned her wounds. And she told her about her life.

Emma was surprised to hear that Sam Winchester had killed her – after she’d spent the night with him, no less – but she didn’t tell her that his brother was her father.

Instead, she simply told her she’d been killed by a hunter, and explained to her how she’d grown up. She told her the Amazons’ History. She told her about the Initiation, how it was only then that one became a full Amazon and got a last name.

Madison was confused.

“But you told me you have parents. Shouldn’t you have one already?”

“No. First names are given to us at birth, and it’s not our mothers who decide on them. We only get our last name at the Initiation.”

After a while, she told her what the Initiation entailed. To her surprise, Madison wasn’t shocked or disgusted. Then again, she knew Emma hadn’t killed her father.

“You could always pick one”.

Emma laughed and shook her head.

She didn’t reply that she didn’t think she deserved a last name.

They slowly developed a routine.

And then –

Then they began to help others.

Somehow, when they heard cries and they sounded distressed rather than ferocious, they went to see if someone needed their help.

More often than not this was the case. Madison in time became a good fighter herself, and Emma as an Amazon had learned enough; they were a good team.

And not all monsters were really monsters.

Some were like Madison; some were tired and didn’t want to fight anymore. But all of them were thankful.

Soon, not a week passed in which they did not try to help some creature – a vampire, a shapeshifter, a skinwalker, it didn’t matter. Sometimes they succeeded, sometimes they didn’t.

Only after months did Emma realize that, while she had failed to become an Amazon, she had become a hunter.

Like her father.

Then came the day when they moved in to help a young boy – a changeling, Emma registered – and the Arachne stabbed her in the stomach with a sharp branch.

She fell to the ground and already knew that she would die for a second time.

At least Madison managed to behead the Arachne with the stone they had spent weeks sharpening. . The boy was safe.

Madison ran to her side and kneeled down.

Emma gave her a weak smile.

“It’s alright” she croaked. “We just come back, don’t we?”

Madison smiled, although there were tears in her eyes. She nodded.

“Remember the clearing we first met? Do you think you could make your way back there?”

Emma had shown Madison how to orientate herself as well, and she nodded.

“See you there, then” Emma said, then lost consciousness.

Her last thought was that, once she woke up and went to the clearing and found Madison again, she would tell her that she had finally chosen a last name.

Winchester. Emma Winchester.


End file.
